Closing out the decade with Princess Mononoke and an interview with Hayao Miyazaki.
I like this first part of the interview:

“But, Miyazaki admitted, he had not yet see the English version of the movie.

“Basically, I assumed that the staff at Miramax would do a good job.” he said. “If couldn’t make the assumption, I would have had to do the whole thing myself.”

This single statement describes the core of the deal between Miyazaki’s Japanese release company Tokuma Shoten and Disney’s Buena Vista. The legendary director’s work is protected from cuts or alterations, but otherwise, the films are, as Miyazaki is concerned, in good hands.

“Bringing this kind of movie to America is a gamble for Miramax,” he said. “Well, a small one, but still- the deal from the beginning was that there would be no cuts, so involving myself with it beyond that would make things more complicated for everybody.”

I had to include a scan of the spotlight of Kia Asamiya’s Star Wars Episode 1 The Phantom Menace manga adaptation.

“the secrecy of the film was so extreme, they wouldn’t let me see the movie.” Asamiya remembers. “The only thing I had to go on was them explaining to me what the story was about. They wouldn’t give me visuals. They did show me photographs, but a lot of the photos were before the special effects were dropped in, so there was a lot of blue screen.”

Now I am tempted to find a copy at an anime con or on ebay.

Highlights:

This month’s Anime That Time Forgot: WildCardz, Gestalt, Nazca

Anime fan art theme this month is football. Pikachu is a halfback.

How many copies of Cosplay Encyclopedia sold for Media Blasters.

Bandai Entertainment ad is announcing English dub versions for Gundam 0080 War in the Pocket and 0083 Stardust Memory. I remember watching those on Toonami.

Gundam Wing article announces the show will be on Cartoon Network in March 2000.

Comments

Man, I really wish I could have been a fan back in those times! Seemed like the Japanese creators were much more willing to give interviews and market themselves. That Miyazaki interview was gold!. This mag makes it seem like it was an exciting time back then with all these possibilities for the medium. Talking about the emergence of manga anthologies like “Super Manga Blast”……I wish stuff like that had caught on to where manga was still being published like that. Oh well. Thanks for making these articles public. I think it’s important for the younger generations like myself to learn about the genesis and progression of the fandom in America.

Thank you for posting these up! I started my subscription to Animerica about mid-2003 so I missed great pieces like this one before I had it delivered to my door. Wish I could find a wormhole in time and travel back to buy my own copy.